Under its Green Influencers Scheme, The Ernest Cook Trust is helping 36 Host Organisations – including Derbyshire Wildlife Trust - to fund the employment of 44 Green Mentors. Each Green Mentor’s role is to enable young people to lead the way as ‘Green Influencers’ on environmental social action projects, and the aim is to recruit 5,000 across the country.

The scheme is match-funded through the #iwill Fund, which is a £54 million joint investment between The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to support young people to access high-quality social action opportunities.

A group of pupils at the David Neiper Academy in Alfreton started out conserving water by installing water butts for the gardening club to use. Since then, they have become concerned by the number of single-use plastic water bottles being used in their school and applied for funding to provide every pupil with a reusable water bottle and install recycling bins in all classrooms.

With more than 600 pupils in the school, this project has the potential to save 600 single-use plastic bottles being used every day and the group now has plans to secure more funding from local businesses to continue the water bottle scheme for future school years and to start new projects.

Another group of Green Influencers from Allestree Woodlands aim to encourage sustainable transport to and from school. The ‘Super Cyclists’ plan to purchase a fleet of bikes to allow pupils to learn to ride safely. Teachers will also become trained on how to maintain the bikes and share these skills with pupils, so that the scheme can continue to benefit pupils for years to come.

Pupils at Arboretum Primary School in Derby have also got involved in the Green Influencers Scheme and found a way to make recycling plastic fun by designing and manufacturing their own gamified recycling bins. The bins placed in the school’s three main entrances include basketball nets above, so that pupils and parents can turn recycling plastic containers from break time and lunch into a game.

To engage as many pupils and parents as possible at the multi-lingual school, the Green Influencers group has also written and designed a booklet titled, ‘Top Tips to Save the Planet’ printed in two languages, and created a display panel which says ‘Thank you for recycling you plastic’ in several other languages.

Each group of these inspiring young people designed their own project and worked with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust to apply for the funding. The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust has so far supported more than 100 Green Influencers in the county.

Emma Wood, Green Mentor at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust said: “These incredible young people are an inspiration and a joy to work with. They are dedicated to taking action to improve our environment and I have been so impressed with their commitment to the Scheme, from coming up with the initial ideas and writing their own funding bids, to actually driving the projects forward.

“My hope is that this encourages more young people, schools and groups to join in and take action for wildlife.”

David Gould, Communications Support Worker at Allestree Woodlands School, added: “Our students are loving their cycling club, immersed in nature, learning and mastering new skills whilst they grow in confidence as individuals and as a group.”

Find out more about joining the Green Influencers Scheme and taking action for wildlife.